


Things That Should Not Happen To Marines: Estate Sale in Kansas

by Pashalawa



Series: Things That Should Not Happen To Marines [2]
Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Creepy Dolls, M/M, Multi, OT3, Polyamory, Scary clown mirror, estate sales in the middle of nowhere
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:08:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26401666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pashalawa/pseuds/Pashalawa
Summary: Ray leaned forward, almost pressing his chest to the steering wheel as he groaned. “C’mon, where’s your sense of adventure, homes? No, where’s your sense of reconnaissance? We are intrepid fuckin’ explorers, under the blue sky, the American dream—”Nate is scared of dolls, Brad receives a special gift, and Ray meets his destiny.
Relationships: Brad Colbert/Nate Fick, Brad Colbert/Nate Fick/Ray Person, Brad Colbert/Ray Person, Nate Fick/Ray Person
Series: Things That Should Not Happen To Marines [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1918840
Comments: 4
Kudos: 29





	Things That Should Not Happen To Marines: Estate Sale in Kansas

**Author's Note:**

> In which I continue a trend of serving up domestic simplicity that goes nowhere, my bread and butter. 
> 
> Based on character interpretations as portrayed in the series 'Generation Kill'. Not meant to be reflective of the actual boys out there livin' their lives and doin' their best. Hats off.
> 
> Spoiler Alert: IDK what I'm doing, it should become rapidly apparent.
> 
> Rated T for general Generation Kill language, which is, as you all know...a lot.

They had left the freeway. 

Brad dozed in the car like a sentry unit—never fully asleep, always listening to the gentle rumble of the car as tires rolled over smooth (and sometimes very much  _ not _ smooth) asphalt. Even resting with his head against the door of the car, eyes closed to the passing fields, he immediately knew when the tires hit dirt. 

This was not an unusual occurrence when Ray was driving, especially when both Brad and Nate had apparently fallen asleep and left him to his own devices. A poor decision on their parts, and one that Brad knew would bite him in the ass. Last time he’d woken up during Ray’s off-roading, they’d ended up at some homemade hippie soap factory. Brad smelled like wood chips and patchouli for the rest of the day. 

They weren’t all terrible. He really enjoyed the cheese shop Ray had peeled off the freeway at 80 miles per hour for. The selection was extensive and the samples were great, and there was a goat that he’d begrudgingly befriended. They still had some of that cheese in the cooler—food, maybe? Had Ray stopped for food? He was also known for his attraction toward strange and unique eateries. 

“Ray?” Brad finally sat up and cracked his neck, quick but gentle. It was 16:00 on the dot. If anyone asked, Brad would say his minor inconsistent and inconsequential super power was waking up at the hour, no matter what that hour happened to be. He would have commented on it if he wasn’t surprised by the complete  _ lack _ of surrounding context clues. He could have guessed why Ray had turned off, were there anything around. Alas, Brad was not awarded such a luxury. Instead he was faced with...what looked like  _ miles _ of grassy fields and plain, wire fencing lining a long dirt road that stretched into the distance. “Where are we.”

It was not a question, it was a demand. Ray didn’t seem to care. Instead, he turned to face Brad, half of his face swallowed up by a big crooked grin and the other half obscured by his Elvis sunglasses. “Oh, good  _ morning _ sunshine. How was your beauty sleep? Did it do you any good?” Ray craned his neck forward, head tilted toward the steering wheel as if he were trying to make that assessment himself. 

In response, Brad leaned forward and shut off the radio station. It was starting to static out and the crackling put him on edge. “I don’t need beauty sleep,” he countered, because the insinuation that he needed anything to maintain his looks was insulting and factually incorrect. He was at 100% every day of his life, regardless of the hour, and Ray damn well knew it. He raised one eyebrow as he side-eyed their driver and his big cheeseball grin. “Why’d we exit. Gas?” 

He assumed it wasn’t. Brad had put painstaking effort into making sure their routes were accurately timed and spaced so that gas would never be an issue. He knew which stations they’d likely need to stop at, given the make and model of their vehicle and the terrain encountered. So it was unlikely they’d need gas, but he could see no other reason for Ray driving off into a field. Brad reached forward and flicked the air conditioning slots toward him. The sun had started to angle in and he could feel the heat pricking his skin. 

Ray automatically reached out and notched the fan up a setting as his thin lips twisted into a knowing and dangerous smirk. Brad knew that smirk. “No, something way more exciting than that.” 

Oh no. They were going to end up at some sort of country hick cornhusk doll and goat yoga studio, and it would be Brad’s fault for leaving Ray alone on the road. He had no one to blame but himself. Still, Ray’s clear joy made him smile as he turned away to look out the window. “—and what would that be? What could possibly be more exciting than refueling?”

“That would ruin the surprise,” Ray said, an obnoxious lilt to his voice that made Brad chuckle lightly, despite the fact that they both knew he hated surprises. Why would he need to be surprised by anything? Why would that ever be a necessary element, or even  _ desired _ element, to his day? Ray knew this as well as he knew that Brad needed no beauty sleep, and Brad knew he was being played with. 

So he reached over and whacked Ray on the back of the head. 

Well,  _ sort of  _ a whack. Brad would claim it was a whack. It was more of a caress, but that was no one’s business but his own, thank you. If his fingers gently slipped through the growing waves of Ray’s hair and his thumb swiped at a bead of sweat on the back of his neck, so be it. “The  _ surprise _ ruins the surprise, you shrink-wrapped garbage opossum.” 

Ray’s cackle filled the car and it was enough to raise Nate, who Brad assumed had been quietly listening and hoping that the issue would resolve itself so he could go back to sleep. They both glanced to the back seat as Nate sat up, squeezing his eyes tight shut for a moment before opening them again, bright and glassy green in the sunlight. 

“Why’d we exit?” He asked, voice husky with sleep, hair mused from the position he’d been laying in. He’d started their drive early that morning, and had only been asleep for roughly forty minutes before Ray’s impromptu diversion from the plan. 

“It’s a surprise,” Brad said dryly, with enough sarcasm to choke a normal human being. He looked back at Nate and met his gaze as he retracted his hand from Ray’s head. Nate’s brow furrowed and Brad swallowed a grin as he watched Nate try to locate any sign of where they might be going, just like he had. 

Nate didn’t have much more luck. Instead he settled back in his seat, shoulders relaxing as he let out a long sigh. Brad dipped his hand down into the cold storage bag at his feet and handed Nate a cold bottle of water. “Is it more cheese?” Nate asked plainly. He took the offered water and twisted the cap off in a fluid motion as Brad settled back into his seat. 

“No, but if it  _ was _ that wouldn’t be the right tone to use, motherfucker. It should be more like ‘Wow, is it more cheese? Thank you, my dearest Ray Ray, for providing me with sustenance in the form of the greatest human food creation of all time.’ That’s the proper tone for cheese. Anything else would be disrespectful,” Ray said, in a fast string of words that managed to retain all the sassy attitude of a 16-year-old girl. Brad thought his Nate impression could use a lot of work, and would have had no problem pointing it out if he wasn’t enjoying watching Nate struggle to digest all of those words so soon after he’d woken up. 

Nate never seemed to disappoint though. It took him a moment of slow, calm blinking as he sipped the cool water, but eventually he nodded his head. “...You’re right, how could I have been so foolish. Thank you, my dearest Ray Ray, for providing me with the sustenance in the form of the greatest human food creation of all time.” Nate’s verbatim repetition earned him another loud Ray cackle, and even Brad chuckled as Ray fidgeted in his seat, sitting up a bit straighter to avoid the sun. “I’d be even more thankful if you’d tell us where we were going.”

Yes. Brad agreed. It was an excellent request, and he turned to Ray expectantly as they both waited for an answer. Instead of providing said answer, Ray leaned forward, almost pressing his chest to the steering wheel as he groaned. “C’mon, where’s your sense of adventure, homes? No, where’s your sense of  _ reconnaissance? _ We are intrepid fuckin’ explorers, under the blue sky, the American dream—” 

It was that moment when Brad caught sight of a sign on the fence. It was clearly made by someone lacking any sort of artistic or practical expertise—a dirty piece of cardboard hung on the wire post with a piece of duct tape. In big, painted black letters it read: ESTATE SALE.

Brad felt three years shaved off of his life expectancy, instantly. “Ray, no.” 

Ray apparently gained those three years. “Ray, yes,” he chirped back, nose scrunched in victory as they all caught sight of the house in the distance, finally visible; the lone property in the middle of the great wide Kansas scenery. 

“Estate sale?” Nate squinted at the sign, and then turned as they passed it to verify that it was actually what he’d read. Brad wished it wasn’t. “Who lives here?” Nate asked, a valid follow-up considering they seemed very isolated. They’d passed through their fair share of small towns, but this felt particularly lonely, off of a freeway that had already been so forlorn. 

“No one anymore, Fickle Pickle. Hence the estate sale. But don’t you wanna find out? Aren’t you curious as to what someone who lives in the middle of literally fucking  _ nowhere _ has in their house?” Ray emphatically whacked at the steering wheel with an open palm, as if he were preaching a very fervent sermon. Brad stared straight ahead and wondered what wrong turn he made in life that had him in love with someone who left the  _ calculated _ route for a farmhouse estate sale. “Besides, I’m morally obligated to go to every estate sale I pass.” 

That seemed to perplex Nate. And why wouldn’t it? It was a ridiculous thing to be obligated to do. Brad glanced back at Nate with an apologetic look on his face.  _ I’m sorry, Nate. I’m sorry that you too must be in love with this maniac.  _ “Why?” Nate asked, meeting Brad’s apologetic gaze with a curious tilt of his head and the slight curve of a smile on his face. Oh yeah. That’s right. They found Ray charming for some reason. Brad had to be reminded of that sometimes. 

However, Ray’s obsession with estate sales was not a  _ charming _ quality he was ready to indulge. With a quick shake of his head, Brad rolled his eyes. “He’s not—” 

“When I was eleven!” Ray said loudly, cutting Brad off with a purposefully raised finger that served as both an interruption and warning. Brad slumped back in his seat and stared straight up at the ceiling of the car as he sighed a sigh so powerful that its echo would be heard in that exact spot of generations to come. 

Ray, unmoved, continued. “When I was eleven, I got my fortune read by this crazy old lady that lived out of town by that old factory that everyone thought was haunted, which honestly I don’t think it was because it was just a fuckin’ factory, a mostly modern one at that, and what the fuck are those ghosts like? Ghosts from the 60s? Fuckin’ psychedelic, right? Here to haunt the shag carpeting—not the point, anyway, so she read my fortune and she told me that  _ one day _ my life and the world around me would be changed by something I picked up at an estate sale.” 

Brad turned to look at Nate with the expression of a man that was late to an appointment he was already dreading. He expected to see the same expression mirrored back, but he got no such luck. Instead, Nate was smiling, lips pursed in the way he did when he was specifically holding back a laugh. “And you believed her?” He asked.

“Fuck no, homes. She was batshit. But like, chaos theory, right? Butterfly effect, topological supersymmetry, all that fucking bullshit wrapped up into one pretty little theory package? What if I get some random fuckin record at an estate sale and I change the future in a huge way?” Ray said this as if it were the most profound statement in the world, hand held up and waving in the air so dramatically that Brad finally smiled despite himself and his deep-rooted resistance to this story that he’d heard five million times before. 

“That is the largest load of worm-infested water-logged corn speckled  _ shit _ I have ever heard in my entire life. Fortune telling is ridiculous—did this woman offer any parameters for what exactly this holy item is supposed to be? Did she give you any specifics at all? Or did she just find some skinny trailer hick weed of a kid and decide to take advantage of his feeble mind with her parlor tricks and vague declarations,” Brad countered as Ray peeled off onto the small gravel road leading up to the estate sale, with one other beat-up truck parked at the entrance. 

Brad figured he might as well be looking at a movie set of the stereotypical farm house. Not the idyllic, lovely farm house that one might encounter in a southern romance movie, oh no. Nothing like that. More of the kind of farmhouse one would approach at the beginning of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, or some other equally horrific slasher flick that Brad had proven beatable with multiple solutions. “Jesus christ,” Brad said. 

“Jesus Christ,” Ray said, in a decidedly different tone as he looked at the farmhouse like he’d just come across a beautiful unicorn dancing on a lake and singing a siren’s melody. “This looks great.”

“I’m a little worried that growing up among livestock has dampened your understanding of common language. Great is not a word I would use to describe this place. It’s not a word anyone would use to describe this place.” That, Brad was sure of. Or almost. He had an amendment to make to that statement. “No, I’m wrong. A location manager for the upcoming summer horror blockbuster slasher movie might use the word ‘great’ to describe this particular property.” 

As per usual, Brad’s dramatics only brought a bright smile to Ray’s face. Brad unenthusiastically accepted the kiss his RTO pressed on his cheek as he leaned over, smacking his lips as loud as humanly possible. “Loosen up, honey bunch. Maybe you’ll like the dead person’s hat collection,” Ray said, and then he got out of the car in a flourish, looking as ridiculous as ever with his bright red t-shirt. 

It had been part of a couples shirt that Ray had bought as a joke a year or so ago: one shirt featured an animated piece of bacon with the phrase ‘Don’t go bacon my heart’, and the other featured a fried egg looking quite desperate, open-mouthed with the words ‘I couldn’t if I fried’. Brad threatened to burn the shirts several times, and would never admit to occasionally wearing them when he had nothing else around. He’d even caught Nate in it a few times, who always shrugged and said it was a solid pun, and it made Ray happy. 

Brad usually responded that plenty of things made Ray happy and those other things didn’t involve the humiliation of singing breakfast food. Nevertheless, Brad watched Ray through the windshield as he sauntered off, fried egg shirt and all, right into the mess of boxes and knick knacks all around the front area of the house. 

Behind him, he heard Nate unbuckle his seatbelt and shift forward. Eventually he felt his warm arms drape around his shoulders and a chin settle near his neck. “You don’t want to have a look?” Nate asked, but Brad could hear the grin in his voice. He was having just as much fun with this as Ray was. What an unlawful alliance and violation of the rule that Brad had just now made up in his head: no ganging up in relation to god-awful estate sales in the middle of nowhere.

“I cannot really put into words how much I’d rather not,” Brad said honestly, looking out as Ray happily fluttered from table to table, picking up items with his little devil hick hands and holding them up to the car. To each one, Brad shook his head. No, no, and no. They would absolutely not be taking home the giant stuffed bear with Xs for eyes. That was not on the agenda. No X eye bears. A new rule. It wasn’t that he was diametrically opposed to the idea, but he knew Ray would want to display the thing where people could see it.

Nate laughed low and Brad could feel the grin pressed into the shell of his ear. “Come on. It’ll be fun,” he teased, and Brad knew he had lost this battle, unwinnable the moment Ray had turned off the freeway. At least now he could admit it. He could have maybe stubbornly waited Ray out, but he couldn’t wait out the both of them. 

As a man who knew his partners very well, he could pinpoint the exact moment of his defeat. “—he got you with topological supersymmetry didn’t he?” Brad asked, knowing full well that Nate got what Ray referred to as ‘hot ted talk boners’. “As soon as he dropped his bullshit chaos theory you were ready to follow him right off a cliff into estate sale hell.” Brad shook his head in disappointment, even if his smile betrayed him. It was cute. He couldn’t complain about it too much. 

Graceful as ever, Nate neither confirmed nor denied the accusation levied at him. “Maybe,” was all he said, voice hovering easily between playful and sneaky. Brad felt Nate’s fingers squeeze his shoulders before he pulled away and got out of the car. Brad sighed as he was  _ beckoned  _ forth for the second time. “Come on.” 

Fine. Nate and Ray wanted to play in the disgusting house with shoddy woodwork and offensive balcony construction? Be his guest. He stepped out of the passenger side, sandals crunching over hot gravel baked under what was otherwise a great day. 

They seemed to be the only people at the estate sale. There was one other man, who, according to the snippets overheard from Nate’s conversation with him, was the grandson of the previous owners. He wanted nothing to do with the property, and Brad thought that was a sensible decision, seeing as there was nothing around—which actually had potential. He might’ve enjoyed the solitude, had it been coastal with a house that was built by someone who understood basic home design and decor. 

As Brad wandered through the tables of items his confusion grew tenfold. He couldn’t make heads or tails of this merchandise. On the one hand, some of it was clearly modern and looked like it belonged in a casual family home. Some appliances, some photo frames and electronics, a few pictures here and there. Normal things, like books and old clothes and some pieces of furniture. Some of the knickknacks looked like items that someone might find in his own parents’ home, or were otherwise unassuming and casual. 

Then there were some things that were...just fucking weird. At one point Brad passed an urn that he was almost positive contained someone’s ashes—he didn’t check. If he did, he’d be honor bound to collect the urn and deposit the ashes somewhere peaceful. If he didn’t check, he could just…‘Schrodinger's cat’ the urn. That was fine with him. 

He walked by other oddities. Multiple paintings of Jesus playing football (iconic, truly). A rather vast collection of porcelain babies. A truly alarming taxidermied squirrel in a pantsuit. A collection of poorly knitted scarves. A very,  _ very _ strange mug that looked to be homemade and baked with...hair? Brad even passed a collection of baby teeth that had been set in a display case, which was disturbing for many reasons, but mostly he was confused on the  _ method  _ of display because it seemed like a waste of space to—no. He didn’t need to go down that particular rabbit hole. 

He tried not to check his watch or rush Ray or Nate along. He didn’t want to be here, but as dramatic as he was about Ray’s nonsense estate sale myth, he would never deny him the chance to meet his destiny or whatever the bullshit was. Brad wiped the sweat off the back of his neck with a swipe of his palm and glanced over to his partners. Nate was digging through a book box, and Brad could tell by the way Ray’s face was lit up that he was saying something dorky. 

On his way over to them, Brad got distracted by a few more things: a Barbie hairdresser set, clearly a modern toy, next to some sort of old-fashioned stuffed animal that looked like it had survived the Black Plague and fought in both World Wars. The dichotomy that existed in this house was mind-boggling,  _ and _ he still wasn’t over the bad balcony construction. 

By the time he reached the books, Ray had disappeared again, but Nate was leaning against the table and paging through a book that looked old. “What did you find,” Brad asked, glancing over the other books on the table. He knew his literature, he’d read nearly all the classics and was familiar with most well-known authors. He didn’t get as far into them as Nate or Ray (who was surprisingly and proficiently well-read for a goat fucking whiskey tango brat), but he recognized the author of the book Nate was holding: Jean Rhys. “What did you find?” 

Nate smiled easily, though his eyes didn’t leave the page he was scanning. “Voyage in the Dark. It’s an early edition. Not in bad condition either,” He said, and flipped the cover to the front to show Brad. It did seem like it was in good condition, which was surprising to him seeing as most things in this estate sale looked like they’d been dragged through a tornado. 

“You like it?” Brad shook his foot to dispel a bit of gravel that had found its way under in his sandal. He knew Jean Rhys. He could appreciate her work, though it all seemed to be centered around the same thing and Brad could only read the story of a person emotionally lost in a large city once before they all started to sound the same. 

Nate tilted his head to the side and Brad watched his fingers skim down the spine of the book. “Mm. I wouldn’t necessarily say I  _ like _ it. But it’s my favorite work. I prefer it to Wide Sargasso Sea. And then compared to Woolf, well—if you ask me, Rhys feels more contemporary. It’s debatable but...” Nate stopped abruptly and stood up a little straighter, dropping the book to his side, sandwiched between his thigh and his hand. “It’s a good find, as far as estate sales go. Did you find anything?”

Well. Technically, Brad had found a whole lot of things. None of them were things he wanted though, so he shook his head and slipped one hand into the pocket of his cargo shorts (practical, thank you). “No. I don’t intend to.” 

Nate laughed and was about to say something when he was cut off by Ray coming out of the house. Apparently inside was where they housed the more precious artifacts, because the thing Ray held in his hands was definitely a sight to motherfucking behold.

“Look at this shit!” He said excitedly, holding the doll up over his head with both hands like he was presenting Simba to the gathered animal community. The doll was porcelain and had an old tattered dress and ratted blonde hair. The painted face was creepy with its wide open eyes and red slash of a mouth. The eyelashes were drawn long and spidery, and someone had drawn the pupils just a  _ little _ bit off. Brad got the impression that if he moved to the side, one eye would still look like it was watching him. 

Brad wasn’t thrilled about it, but in a surprising twist of events, Nate was the one who had the most visceral reaction. His face went flat and he held up the palm on his hand in a flat ‘stop’ motion. “No,” Nate intoned. “Absolutely not.” 

His immediate disapproval delighted Ray, who shook the doll tauntingly as he came closer. “What? Scared of a little dolly? She won’t bite. Not unless you ask.” He cackled and Brad laughed at the weird little dance he had the doll doing. Now that he was closer, Brad could see that parts of the porcelain were cracked, and the dress had some kind of stain on it. Probably from some kid who had treasured it and brought it to dinnertime. 

Nate didn’t seem interested in further inspecting the doll. Brad laughed again as their courageous and intelligent former Lieutenant backed away at the approaching doll, hand still raised up. “Ray, I will not be in an enclosed space, vehicle or otherwise, with that nightmarish vessel for malcontent.” 

Oh no. Nate had made a critical mistake. Brad would be holding onto  _ that _ particular phrasing for a long time now. “That’s dramatic,” Brad noted, conveniently ignoring the fact that he was often the most dramatic human on dry land. Nate shot him a look, and Brad didn’t need him to verbalize to understand he was calling him on his hypocrisy. Fortunately, Nate didn’t have the time to really allow that look to marinate. Ray was on the move. 

“You’re afraid of dolls,” Ray said, a maniacal glint in his eye as he jumped forward, both hands clutching the doll like a weapon. Brad thought he should have gone through Iraq with that doll—would have been just as effective by the looks of it. 

Clearly offended by that phrasing, Nate shook his head and put one hand on his hip. “I  _ dislike _ dolls,” he corrected, eyes trained on Ray like he was a jaguar slinking in the jungle. In Nate’s defense, Ray  _ had _ begun to circle, stalking his prey with nefarious intent. Nate’s outstretched palm turned into one extended finger that he shook at Ray. It didn’t seem to have any effect. “Don’t—Ray!” 

Ah, and there he went. Ray charged at Nate with the doll, and Nate swiftly peeled to the side with a loud laugh that likely masked a shout of displeasure. It was anything but harsh—Ray had a habit of bringing out the kid in the people around him; the kid that used to like rolling around in the dirt and tackling their friends to the ground. It was the same carefree, I-don’t-give-a-fuck spirit that hooked Brad in the first place. It clearly hooked Nate in too: he seemed less afraid of the doll and more intent on not getting caught with it. 

For the record, Brad would point out that he’d  _ never _ been the sort of kid that went rolling around in the dirt to begin with. He watched them do the little dodge dance before he glanced back at the man of the sale, who looked a little confused. “Sorry sir, he was raised by barnyard pigs,” Brad said, as Nate finally managed to wrestle the doll away from Ray and drop it into one of the bins with a slight shudder. The man only shrugged and went back to sorting out some more items for display. 

“Can we leave yet?” Brad asked, patience finally wearing down to a nub. They were losing time, and he had  _ planned _ the route, dammit. Nate hummed gently, only slightly out of breath from escaping near possession from the doll. He nudged Ray with his elbow. 

“Hm? Oh shit, yeah, just gotta pay for some stuff,” Ray said, looking up when Nate nudged him. And then he proceeded to produce the single most horrific hand mirror ever crafted from the box the doll had been dumped into. “Oh my god,” Ray said, in awe as he held it up to the sky. “...This is it.” 

It, in question? It was a hand mirror, sure. But the mirror was placed in the huge, gaping mouth grin of a clown. The teeth of the clown, clunky and yellow, protruded over the top and bottom edges of the mirror, and above the top sat the most evil looking face ever crafted through a plastic mold. It looked like a normal clown: big red nose, puffy rainbow hair—but the eyebrows, in perfect arches, unsettled Brad in a way that shouldn’t have been possible for something as simple as a  _ hand mirror _ .

“What do you mean  _ this is it? _ This is what? The thing that’s going to murder us in our sleep tonight? I don’t believe in ghosts, but that’s fucking haunted,” Brad said, laughing through the statement. Unsettling eyebrows aside, it was just a mirror, and it  _ was _ pretty funny. If Ray’s goal was to find weird and unusual things at estate sales, this was definitely a winner. He plucked it from Ray’s hands to inspect it. “Looks hand painted. Kind of like the doll, but someone did better with the eyes. Or they learned how to be symmetrical. Artistic growth—admirable.” 

Nate did not seem nearly as impressed. “So your recon tells you that whoever lived in this house decided to make both a doll and a clown mirror at different stages in their artistic career? That’s the conclusion we’ve drawn?” Nate peered over Brad’s arm at the mirror and then frowned. “The mirror isn’t even good anymore.” 

He was right. The mirror had seen better days, clearly. It was tarnished, especially around the edges, but there was one spot in the middle that would be particularly annoying to anyone trying to use it for its primary function. Ray didn’t seem to care at all. “It’s what the lady was talking about, man. This is clearly my destiny. It’s fuckin’ legendary and I  _ need _ it,” Ray declared, taking the mirror back from them and flipping it over to inspect the back. 

“What could you possibly need this for,” Brad returned, already heading toward the car. Delightfully awful clown mirror aside, he was very much done with this particular excursion. 

“So I can look at my face all day,” Ray shot back. He was heading toward the man again, and as he left Nate also made his way to the car.

“You’ll go blind,” Brad teased, but his words came too late. Ray was already at the table, digging in his back pocket for that old barely-together wallet that he refused to replace. “And he’s getting it,” Brad said to Nate. Together they watched as Ray paid for the mirror, Nate’s book, and a few other trinkets that he must have assembled together at some point. 

Nate merely shrugged with a slight smile as he opened the back door of the car to retrieve the water Brad had handed him earlier. “Well, it’s better than the doll,” he said, upbeat enough as he took out half of the bottle in one take. Brad watched Nate wipe his wrist across his lips to clean the droplets from the corners of his mouth. 

“Is it?” Brad didn’t know much about how to measure a clown mirror against a doll, but he would have placed them in the same bracket, all things considered. It didn’t matter though—Ray was pleased with his purchases, and all it had cost him was apparently ten dollars for the whole grab and fifteen precious minutes of Brad’s life. 

“I got you motherfuckers some gifts, because I’m a thoughtful and devoted boyfriend,” Ray announced as soon as they were all settled back into the car and he was driving back down the long empty road they’d traveled to get to the farmhouse. Without looking, he dipped one hand into the cheap plastic bag the man had given him and pulled out a thin piece of...something. Brad quickly identified it as a bookmark. “For Nate, so he can mark his book in style.” 

Nate reached forward from the back. He was seated behind Ray, so when he grabbed the bookmark his other hand came up the other side to gently tug Ray’s earlobe. “You  _ are _ thoughtful and devoted, thank you,” he said. Brad had gotten a good look at the bookmark by now and assumed he’d change his tune. 

Sure enough, when Nate pulled back to inspect the gift, his nose scrunched up in confusion. “Is this—?”

“A dead lizard skin that someone pressed into a bookmark? Fuck yeah it is. But it’s like...in the plastic, so you don’t have to worry about getting any fucking lizard disease.” Ray said this as if it were a huge bonus of the product, and Brad couldn’t help the snort that came out of his mouth as he turned his head and rolled down the window to get some of the hot air cycling out of the car. 

“—it’s terrible,” Nate said, but Brad could tell from the tone of his voice that he was nothing but fond. “I’ll treasure it forever.” 

“And for you, Big Gay Brad,” Ray said, and Brad nodded slowly. He knew he hadn’t escaped that estate sale unscathed. Ray wouldn’t let  _ that _ happen. He took a deep breath of the clean Kansas air and turned to his RTO to see—

“Oh no.” Another year shaved off of Brad’s life. 

“Oh yes.” Another year added to Ray’s life.

“Is this—” 

“Yup.” Ray popped the ‘p’ on his affirmative response proudly, holding in his hand a hot pink scented candle with none other than Fight Club Brad Pitt pictured on the holder. “For the next time we’re gettin’ fucking freaky. The spirit of Tyler Durden can guide us to orgasmic bliss.” 

Brad took the candle with a slight look of disbelief. Disbelief that the candle existed in the first place, and disbelief that it had somehow found its way into his possession. Nate seemed more interested in it as he leaned forward to get a better look. “It’s still better than the doll,” he teased. “Besides, I don’t know a single person who wouldn’t want Tyler Durden to guide them to  _ orgasmic bliss.”  _

“ _ That’s _ what I’m fucking talking about! Everyone likes Brad Pitt in Fight Club. Even people who don’t like Brad Pitt. Even people who don’t like men. He transcends the bounds of sexuality, homes,” Ray said, turning back to focus on the road after waving his hand weakly at Nate in some attempt at a high five. They’d only ended up locking fingers in a moment of casual affection.

Brad frowned at the candle in his hand, a direct attempt to stop himself from giving Ray the satisfaction of the grin that was threatening to break out. Instead, he focused on the freeway they were approaching. He could see the long, straight stretch of road ahead. “You’re an idiot,” he said. “—But I can’t disagree.” 

“ _ Fuck _ yeah,” Ray said. The heel of his palm smacked against the steering wheel to accentuate his words. Brad put the candle back in the bag, next to the weird clown mirror. Then he pulled the clown mirror out to inspect it again. It  _ was _ fascinating in the sense that he really couldn’t imagine the kind of person who would actually put in effort to create this monstrosity. As they finally merged back onto the freeway, Ray grabbed the mirror for him and held it up, angling until he caught Nate in the visible section. “How much do you wanna bet this is one haunted son of a bitch?”

Brad knew it wasn’t. But on the off chance (the  _ severely _ off chance) that it was, he’d handle it. There was no way he was going to be taken out by a Stephen King knock off. The fucking nerve. He glared at the mirror, now currently propped up in the cupholder between him and Ray.

Game on. 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to ancamna0 for the beta <3


End file.
